Muhly’s dark, haunting “Two Boys” offers a chilling parable for the internet age

“Everything is ironic,” says Alice Coote as detective Anne Strawson about the dangerous online world into which she has been forced to descend. “They’ve killed off beauty. There’s no tenderness. There’s nothing.”

Nico Muhly’s Two Boys opened Monday night at the Metropolitan Opera in its highly anticipated U.S. premiere, following the opera’s 2011 debut at English National Opera.

With a visually stunning production, raw yet eloquent libretto by Craig Lucas and a compelling score by Nico Muhly, Monday’s opening-night performance proved a triumph almost across the board. The first fruit of the Met’s New Works Program in concert with the Lincoln Center Theater, Two Boys bodes well for future efforts by this important partnership.